Presidential search: Shortlist of candidates finalized

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We are pleased to provide an update on the Presidential search process.

We are delighted to advise that the search committee, after much discussion and deliberation, has constructed a shortlist of seven excellent candidates. The position profile developed through stakeholder consultation has been instrumental in the evaluation of candidates, and we thank the UBC community for your thoughtful input. As a committee, we have been pleased with the genuine level of interest and optimism expressed by all candidates at the prospect of contributing to the ongoing success of UBC as it enters its second century. We are encouraged by the strength and diversity that is represented in this pool of candidates. The candidates on the shortlist are diverse in terms of backgrounds, academic disciplines, geographic location, university leadership positions held, gender and ethnicity.

The full committee will now hold in-depth interviews with these shortlisted candidates during the month of May, with the objective of reaching a decision for recommendation to the UBC Board of Governors. We remain on track to announce our new President by June 30.

There are two recent changes in committee membership filling the vacancies of Greg Peet (Board of Governors) and Dr. Jennifer Berdahl (Vancouver faculty).

Celeste Haldane is a practising lawyer and is an active member of the Canadian Bar Association and the Indigenous Bar Association who joined UBC’s board in 2013. She has recently been appointed chair of the board’s Governance Committee. Celeste is elected to the BC Treaty Commission, and currently is the acting chief commissioner and also serves on the Musqueam Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and the Housing & Capital Committee.

Dr. Mark MacLachlan is a professor in UBC’s Department of Chemistry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and holds the Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular Materials. The focus of his research is in inorganic chemistry and materials development. Dr. MacLachlan has received the Killam Teaching Prize, the Killam Mentorship Award, the E. W. R. Steacie Fellowship, and the Steacie Prize.

Both Celeste and Mark are committed to making UBC a great place to do research and study. We are pleased to welcome Mark, and to welcome back Celeste, who graciously stepped down recently to allow Board of Governors Chair Stuart Belkin to join the committee. They will both be excellent additions to the committee, and we are grateful to them for volunteering their time to this most important endeavour.

In closing, we would all like to take this opportunity to thank the UBC community for its ongoing support of the search process, and to encourage you to continue to submit your comments to us in confidence by email to president.search@ubc.ca or online: http://bog.ubc.ca/?page_id=10215.